Fighting bull spirit that won Carlos Sainz the 2022 British GP — race analysis

F1

Carlos Sainz won the 2022 British Grand Prix with determination and doggedness, in a race that was shaped by three hard points, writes Mark Hughes

Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz at the 2022 British GP

Sainz made the right moves when it mattered for Ferrari

Ferrari

Mark Hughes

Carlos Sainz’s fighting bull spirit has sometimes got him into trouble this year. When his back has been against the wall, trying to lift his performances up to the sometimes-extraordinary level of his team-mate, it’s led to incidents like those in Melbourne or in qualifying at Imola or Miami. But that same spirit served him brilliantly well at Silverstone in winning him his first grand prix the day after setting his first pole position.

He wasn’t the fastest on Sunday but he fought for his every opportunity with intensity and smarts. From aggressively dealing with Max Verstappen off the line and through the first corner, to fighting his corner with his own team as it sought to win the race for Charles Leclerc. He was handed opportunities by Verstappen damaging his Red Bull over debris shortly after taking the lead from Sainz and by Ferrari making a safety car call which worked in his favour and inadvertently against Leclerc. As Ferrari tried to rectify that in preparing for the restart with just nine laps to go, Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and Sergio Perez’s Red Bull breathing down their necks, Sainz coherently and convincingly explained to his team how he – and not the old-tyred Leclerc – was the most certain route to a Ferrari victory.

So it proved. Sainz, having earlier been moved aside to ease the passage of the faster Leclerc, was on his new soft tyres past Leclerc within five corners of the restart. As Leclerc battled mightily trying to keep the new-tyred Perez and Hamilton behind him, so it delayed them enough to allow Sainz to sprint away.

Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz at the 2022 British GP

Sainz argued his case with the Scuderia and ultimately proved a popular winner

Ferrari

It was an epic race with a heart-warming result, for Sainz is universally popular and has not always met with the best of luck in the past. But it could only be enjoyed in the knowledge that Zhou Guanyu was unharmed after a horrific-looking accident within seconds of the start, his Alfa Romeo skating upside down through the Abbey gravel trap before being launched over the barriers and into the catch fencing. With the roll hoop appearing to have been crushed, the halo saved him from harm – though he was trapped in the car for some time as it lay between the two layers of barriers. That accident and the immediate red flag seconds after the start perhaps saved further carnage – because anti-oil protesters were about to blockade the track on the Wellington straight. Cars enter that at around 120mph under racing conditions… thankfully they weren’t under racing conditions by the time they arrived there and the protesters were restrained and later arrested.

Zhou’s accident was triggered by George Russell being slow away in his hard-tyred Mercedes and Pierre Gasly trying to go for the gap between the Merc and the Alfa just as Russell was beginning to ease left to take up his line for Abbey. As wheels interlocked, Russell was spun into Zhou’s car, which immediately flipped. A secondary accident ensued as an unsighted Sebastian Vettel hit the hard-braking Alex Albon into the pit wall, the Williams rebounding into other cars. Albon was taken to hospital for a check up but later released.

The accident was one of three hard points which defined the race. The others were:

Verstappen’s ill luck

47 SCHUMACHER Mick (ger), Haas F1 Team VF-22 Ferrari, 01 VERSTAPPEN Max (nld), Red Bull Racing RB18, action during the Formula 1 Lenovo British Grand Prix 2022, 10th round of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship, on the Silverstone Circuit, from July 1 to 3, 2022 in Silverstone, United Kingdom - Photo DPPI

Verstappen was left fighting with Schumacher after early damage

DPPI

Verstappen – who’d had a near-certain pole denied him by Leclerc spinning in front of him and bringing out yellow flags – now had his lead neutralised by the red flag. Starting on soft tyres he’d easily out-accelerated the medium-tyred Sainz. But that tyre choice was almost certain to put him on a two-stop strategy. The revised RB18 was fast enough that he could probably have won on either strategy but having a chance to rethink that during the break, he opted for mediums and a likely one-stop – like almost everyone else – for the restart.

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This time Sainz was able to pin him against the pit wall for long enough to compromise the Red Bull’s line into Abbey and even though Verstappen edged in front on the corner approach, Sainz was able to aggressively move around his outside for the lead.

But it was a slower car ahead, as Verstappen was all over the Ferrari, which was losing time with an understeery balance. Sainz pushed on but eventually began opening out his front-left tyre and as he slid wide onto the Becketts/Chapel run-off, Verstappen flashed past and into the lead. That looked to be the foundation of a comfortable Verstappen victory. Except a few corners later he destroyed much of the underfloor of his car, running over AlphaTauri debris left at the Village loop by the clashing Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda. The car was so bad Verstappen believed he had a puncture and pitted for new rubber, only to find it was just as bad upon rejoining. Hobbled like this, he battled on to seventh place and damage limitation points in the championship, fending off an attacking Mick Schumacher in the last few laps, the latter taking his career first points.

Mercedes quick

With Verstappen sidelined, Sainz was back in the lead but had team mate Leclerc, clearly faster, demanding the team move him aside. This was a matter of urgency because the Mercedes of Hamilton was catching them.

Yes, the Mercedes was back to its Barcelona level of competitiveness on a fast, smooth track once more. It lacked a couple of tenths to the Ferrari over a single lap and maybe around 0.4sec to the Red Bull, but that was because it didn’t switch on its tyres as well. That gentler usage was an asset once a few laps into a stint. The longer it went on, the stronger Hamilton looked.

As Leclerc pointed out the urgency of getting Sainz out of his way, Ferrari issued the leader with target times to meet. When he couldn’t do so, he was asked to move aside. He complied without complaint and Leclerc began to ease away – but not at any great rate, because without the benefit of Sainz’s DRS he no longer had such a pace advantage.

He’d damaged his front wing endplate on the first lap, fighting over track space with Perez at Turn 4. The Mexican pitted for a new nose soon after and would rejoin well down but set to make steady progress through the field, his race then enlivened by the timing of the safety car. But that was all still to come. Meanwhile Hamilton continued to gain on Sainz – and with Leclerc only a couple of seconds ahead, things were getting interesting.

Ferrari brought Sainz in on lap 20, Leclerc on lap 25. Hamilton stayed out, leading. There’d been no point trying to undercut Sainz as the Merc’s warm-up on the hard tyre onto which they’d be switching to get to the end would be way too slow to make that work. It had to be the overcut – and that’s what they were trying for. But he couldn’t never quite make it work, forever hovering around 19sec in front when he needed a couple of seconds more than that. He stayed out until lap 34 and rejoined – after a couple of seconds’ delay in the pits – still within striking range of the Ferraris and on much fresher rubber.

Sainz was then told to fuel save, so aiding Hamilton’s cause. He was now catching by around 0.5sec per lap.

Ferrari’s safety car response

On lap 38 Esteban Ocon coasted his powerless Alpine to a halt on the old pit straight between Woodcote and Copse. With the car in a hazardous spot, the safety car was deployed.

This came just as race leader Leclerc was rounding Stowe. There were only a few seconds for Ferrari to decide what to do. “Stay out, stay out” they told him. Sainz, by contrast, was brought in for fresh softs, as were most of those behind. Everyone had plenty of the soft C3 tyre left on account of wet qualifying. Its range was too small for a one-stop, but as a fast late-race tyre with the cars on low fuel and the track rubbered in, it was fine.

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc at the 2022 British GP

Leclerc was left far from happy with Ferrari strategy decision

Ferrari

Ferrari’s actions seemed to have doomed Leclerc to be an old-tyred sitting duck to his new-tyred pursuers on the restart. The logic of their thinking was that if they’d pitted Leclerc, Hamilton would have stayed out and been lined up behind Sainz on the restart. Hamilton’s tyres were only four laps old when the safety car came out, Sainz’s had been on for 18 laps. Hamilton might therefore have been able to pick off Sainz and Ferrari would have lost the race.

In trying to protect Leclerc from the position they’d put him in, Ferrari asked Sainz to drop back the legal 10 car lengths from Leclerc at the restart, to give him a cushion. Sainz reasoned that he wouldn’t be able to hold back Hamilton and Perez if he was driving defensively – and they would then be able to attack Leclerc. Better, he reasoned, to let him pass Leclerc when racing was underway.

And that’s how it went down. The post-restart fight was a thriller. Sainz went past Leclerc within five corners as Perez, in a Red Bull which could turn its tyres on almost instantly, attacked first Hamilton, then Leclerc. There were passes and repasses along the way – not least Leclerc’s superb around-the-outside pass on Hamilton at Copse – but eventually Perez broke through to second and Hamilton to third. Almost getting involved in that scrap were Fernando Alonso’s Alpine and Lando Norris’ McLaren, which took fifth and sixth.

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